Rajya Sabha elections 2016: Many heavy-weight leaders who were in the fray of Rajya Sabha elections, made it to final cut as the results were declared today. Nirmala Seetharaman, Jairam Ramesh, Subhash Chandra, M J Akbar, Kapil Sibal and Amar Singh were among some big names who made it to the upper house.

The major jolt for Congress came in Haryana where the party suffered through apparent deliberate wrong marking of the ballots by its 14 MLAs that led to the defeat of the party-backed Independent candidate R K Anand who was mainly fielded by its arch rival INLD.

Subhash Chandra, a media baron, defeated Anand, a senior lawyer and a former MP, after 14 votes of Congress were rejected, state Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma told the media in Chandigarh.

Even before the elections, there was speculation that the overwhelming majority of the 17 Congress MLAs, owing allegiance to former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, would not toe the party line on supporting Anand.

The Congress also failed in its attempt to secure victory for JMM candidate Basant Soren, son of party supremo Shibu Soren, backed by it in Jharkhand where a ruling BJP nominee Mahesh Poddar won by a whisker after an arrested JMM MLA and a Congress MLA facing arrest could not vote.

In the 27 seats spread across seven states that were up for grabs today, 11 went to BJP, 6 to Congress, 7 to Samajwadi Party, 2 to BSP and one Independent. Thirty of the 57 seats in the current round of biennial elections were decided without contest last week.

Former union minister and Congress heavyweight Sibal managed to defeat BJP-backed Independent candidate and socialite Preeti Mahapatra, wife of a Mumbai-based businessman, without the anticipated support of BSP whose two candidates Satish Chandra Mishra and Ashok Sidharth won comfortably.

There were 12 candidates for 11 Rajya Sabha seats in UP and to secure a seat in Rajya Sabha, a candidate required 34 votes.

Cross voting took place in today’s polling as Samajwadi Party fielded seven candidates but the seventh candidate was short of nine first-preference votes for victory.

Although SP managed to ensure victory of all its seven candidates, only three were through in the first round of counting, reflecting that the contest was close for the ruling party.

Bahujan Samaj Party chose not to transfer its 12 surplus votes with it two candidates Mishra getting 39 votes and Sidhharth 42.

The last-minute entry of Preeti Mahapatra, wife of a Mumbai-based businessman, in the fray which forced a contest, managed just 18 first preference votes and conceded defeat even when the counting in further rounds was on.

In Haryana, while BJP leader Birender Singh was assured of a comfortable win for one seat, the main centre of interest was the fight was between Chandra and Anand for the other seat.

After rejection of 14 votes, Birender Singh needed just 26 votes for his own win and his 14 surplus votes were transferred to Chandra as second preference votes, taking the total number of his votes to 29, Rambilas Sharma said.

Singh rejected allegations of horse trading. “Congress votes were found to be invalid. After votes which were needed for my victory, the share of my votes got transferred to Chandra and this took tally of his votes to 29,” he said.

“Congress party’s 14 votes were rejected because they registered their votes with another pen other than the one provided by the Returning Officer to record their votes in the voting compartment,” claimed Chautala.

In Madhya Pradesh, the results were on expected lines as BJP candidates M J Akbar and Anil Dave and Congress’ Vivek Tankha were elected even as BJP-backed Independent candidate was defeated.

BJP’s bid to spoil the Congress candidate’s chances by fielding its leader Vinod Gotia as an independent candidate did not succeed. Gotia got 50 votes–48 surplus votes of BJP and two independents–against the 58 required for win.
Senior journalist M J Akbar and state BJP leader and strategist Dave polled 58 votes each, while Tankha secured 62 votes–57 from Congress, four from BSP and one independent, returning officer Bhagwandas Israni said.

BSP supremo Mayawati had issued a whip to its four MLAs to vote for Tankha.

If it was Congress at the receiving end in Haryana, revolt-hit Janatal Dal (Secular) suffered the humiliation in Karnataka with eight of its MLAs cross voting in favour of Congress.

Congress’ candidate Ramamurthy chalked up a resounding victory securing 52 votes, aided by the support of Independents and JD(S) rebel MLAs, defeating JD(S)-backed nominee B M Farooq who managed 33 votes against the party’s strength of 40 in the Assembly.

“8 MLA’s have voted against JD(S) in today’s Rajya Sabha election in favour of Congress. Tomorrow in the party’s meeting, we are going to take action against them according to provisions of the party constitution,” JD(S) spokesman Ramesh Babu said.